


extraordinary writ

by flybbfly



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Jehan is an art teacher with a weird apartment, Lawyers, M/M, Modern Era, Uh is 'feeding each other' a kink?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 16:07:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4967443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flybbfly/pseuds/flybbfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Courfeyrac is a lawyer, Jehan is a middle school art teacher, Les Amis know each other from Harvard, and the city of Cambridge is having a douchey Halloween party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	extraordinary writ

**Author's Note:**

  * For [torakowalski](https://archiveofourown.org/users/torakowalski/gifts).



> There's something of a short soundtrack to go along with this text—I've linked to music throughout and compiled a list of all the songs to be found at the end of the story.
> 
> Happy Halloween, and I hope you enjoy! <3

_here is the deepest secret nobody knows  _  
 _ (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud _  
_ and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows _   
_ higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) _  
_ and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart _

_i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)_

– E. E. Cummings, “[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]"

 

 

–

 

The man Courfeyrac has been asked to research has dirty blond hair that is matting into faux-dreadlocks at its ends. His shirt says _Greenpeace_ , but he carries a bottle of water and wears noticeably leather shoes.

“What do you think?” Bossuet asks.

“Last name?”

“Beckett.”

“I'd say Harvard student. Activist during the schoolyear, Goldman intern in the summers. Stops smoking weed for just long enough to pass their pee test. Finance … no, econ, definitely econ concentration.”

“Thanks,” Bossuet says. “You still on the BP case?”

Courfeyrac nods. “I had court this morning.”

“I guessed as much,” Bossuet says. “Dinner tonight? Feuilly's bringing pierogies.”

“Can't,” Courfeyrac says, and he sets Bossuet's witness's file down to stand up and pack his things. “Dinner with Jehan.”

“Bring him too,” Bossuet says, and then laughs. “Actually. Best if you don't, probably. Pierogies are definitely a finger food.”

Courfeyrac flushes at that, but he laughs good-naturedly anyway as he pulls his jacket on and straightens his tie. He is wearing blue today. He did well in court this morning, and he makes a note of it: _when you wear blue, people do not see you as a threat; you are able to both surprise and appease them; this gives you an advantage over harsh lawyers but beware: it may make you seem too young_.

 

–

Jehan's apartment is a hodgepodge of art and kitsch that clash so violently as to become something close to beautiful to look at, like Mount Vesuvius mid-eruption or perhaps an abandoned doll factory. One wall is almost tasteful, boasting a scattering of Grantaire's work—one or two photographs of Gavroche done in close-up, disinterested teenage pout, wide hazel eyes hooded in disdain; an abstract painting called “selfie”; a collage of polaroids that, on closer observation, reveal themselves to be bits and pieces of their friends: a cigarette between Bossuet's lips from before he quit, the fraying sleeve of Jehan's favorite sweater, Courfeyrac's freckled shoulder, Marius's freckled nose; a mounted lock of blond hair—but they're all framed in such a gaudy manner, chipped gold paint giving away the false gilt of them, that even they are not quite what Courfeyrac might call curated, especially because the wall behind them is covered in strips of vintage floral wallpaper.

It's a wonder Bahorel puts up with it, but then, that the burly former football player turned corporate lawyer (“We'll destroy 'em from the inside out,” he once told a bemused Enjolras after landing an internship at one of the biggest law firms in Boston) lives with the fae-like Jehan—who flits so wildly from person to person and room to room that it's a wonder he doesn't have wings—is a hodgepodge in and of itself.

Courfeyrac sits down on one of the plush velvet benches that make up one third of the seating in Jehan and Bahorel's living room (the rest is a leopard-print fake leather couch that has seen its share of glitter and sequins spilled all over it and a rickety barstool whose structural integrity Courfeyrac often tests via a series of what his eighth grade teacher might call “smart aleck maneuvers”: leaning back on two of its three legs, or balancing on only one hip, or kneeling on the too-small seat) and leans forward on Jehan's kitchen bar.

“It's just so tiring,” Courfeyrac says. “I can't fuck the happy back into every sad person in Cambridge.”

Jehan looks down his nose at him. It's a rare occasion when Jehan can look down his nose at anybody, but slumped forward as he is, Courfeyrac is actually shorter than Jehan for once.

“I don't see why not,” Jehan says, stirring the bright orange batter in the bowl inches away from Courfeyrac's hand. Courfeyrac gets the urge to knock the bowl to the ground—not maliciously, but playfully, the way a cat might knock a ball. He has the feeling Jehan might not see it that way, though, and so instead he merely looks out ahead at the pre-heating oven.

“I've started to chafe,” Courfeyrac says. “One can't be expected to have to deal with all the sad people in this little city. There's _Harvard_ , Jehan. Not to mention MIT.”

“I hadn't realized MIT had such a large gay population,” Jehan says. “They all seem like nerds to me.”

“Whoever said nerds can't be gay?” Courfeyrac says. “Anyway—one hardly has to be gay to sleep with a man, especially one like me.”

He sits up to spread his arms out. Courfeyrac isn't stupid, blind, or humble, and one would have to be all three to ignore what he looks like.

“We get it,” Jehan says dryly. “You're very hot.”

He moves past Courfeyrac and the Tiffany lamp beside him to the planters at the base of the French windows in his living room and clips some thyme.

“You're putting thyme in cupcakes?” Courfeyrac asks, bewildered but not particularly surprised. Jehan once made him a lasagna that featured rainbow sprinkles, beef jerky, and a considerable amount of lemon zest. It was reasonably edible, though that Jehan neglected to feed Courfeyrac—as he so frequently did—morsel by morsel, fingers to mouth, probably made it taste a bit worse.

“You never know when you'll have to hustle random ingredients together last minute for a five course meal,” Jehan says.

“Still,” Courfeyrac says. “That doesn't mean you need to add thyme to cupcakes.”

“It'll keep the flavor from getting too flat and boring,” Jehan says. “You'd know all about the importance of that, wouldn't you?”

Courfeyrac flushes at this but is spared the necessity of a response by Jehan's continued explanation.

“The thyme will enhance the flavor of the orange zest,” Jehan is saying. “Taste.”

He holds a spoon out to Courfeyrac, who has to crane his neck to reach. It does not escape his notice that Jehan locks eyes with Courfeyrac when his mouth closes around the spoon, but they have never spoken of it before, this strange thing between them, and they are not likely to speak of it now.

“It's good,” Courfeyrac says, and swallows.

 

–

It is rare that Enjolras partakes in what he (wrongly, Courfeyrac knows) sees as time-wasting flights of fancy, the types of diversions that Enjolras views to be lesser. He is nothing if not an ascetic, but Courfeyrac is nothing if not indulgent, sometimes almost hedonistic in nature.

It is rarer still that Enjolras serves as the catalyst for such an amusement himself, at least willingly, which is why Courfeyrac sits in delighted shock when Enjolras proposes that the ABC go to Cambridge's annual Halloween festival, a Salem Witch Trials-themed affair that unironically dresses an old building up as the House of the Seven Gables and fills it with alcohol and Cambridge's odd combination of young professionals and younger students not thirty miles away from the _actual_ House of the Seven Gables.

“Say that again,” Courfeyrac says. “I think I've misheard you. Did you say that we should all go out and have _fun_ together? You, who only sticks around for drinks with Les Amis because I tell you it's not particularly _amicable_ to leave immediately after handing out assignments? You, whose last birthday party consisted of a trip to an anti-fracking demonstration in Vermont?”

“We did stop to see the leaves,” Enjolras says. “That was time-wasting amusement. Must I drink myself sick to convince you that I enjoy my life on a day-to-day basis?”

“I'm not even convinced you're aware that enjoying oneself is possible,” Courfeyrac says. “Do you have an ulterior motive?”

Enjolras, at least, has the grace to look ashamed, not unlike a puppy who has been caught digging through his owner's trash and now, surrounded by half-rotten garbage, finds himself unable to clean any of it up. But only briefly: the expression soon gives way to something akin to triumph.

“I wouldn't call it an ulterior motive,” Enjolras says. “I'd call it … entrepreneurialism.”

“You, who has never had one good word to say about a single entrepreneur, would call it entrepreneurialism.”

“I think Steve Jobs had an admirable combination of ambition and creativity.”

“Impressive,” Courfeyrac says. “And what did Jobs teach you about ulterior motives?”

“The festival is the perfect place to promote the ABC's new citywide women's health initiative,” Enjolras says. “I've already talked it through with Combeferre.”

That grates, though Courfeyrac is careful not to show any indication of it. He knows that Enjolras and Combeferre see each other more frequently than he could hope to see either: they are rarely encumbered by the need to work after-hours, by the way it feels to be an integral part of a team on a deadline. When he is frantically calling people for information, Enjolras and Combeferre discuss politics and activism over wine. He knows this isn't their fault. He knows this comes with his unforgiving job in environmental law and theirs in politics.

“I'm not opposed to it,” Courfeyrac says at last. “If anything, I think it'll help bring us all closer together if we have some fun in the same room for once instead of just shouting at each other about the benefits of socialism versus communism.”

“Everything in moderation,” says Enjolras smoothly, standing and sliding out of the booth in one fluid motion.

“Even work?”

“Courfeyrac,” Enjolras says, smiling. “You know work is not so much an activity as it is an intrinsic state of being.”

“For you, maybe,” Courfeyrac says.

“Tell Marius I said hello.”

Such an indulgence is not particularly Enjolras-ian in nature, either, but similar ones have been more frequent of late. Courfeyrac doesn't quite have the reason for this down yet, but he understands that Enjolras occasionally tries to bring himself back to the level of non-cause-related human relationships. He is good at it, Courfeyrac supposes.

“Shall I extend your invite as well?” he asks.

“Might as well,” Enjolras says. “Things go better when Marius is around.”

Courfeyrac doesn't have much of an idea what Enjolras is referring to, but then, sometimes Enjolras is beyond even him.

“I'll see you soon, then,” Enjolras says, and then is gone.

 

–

Jehan's classroom constantly looks like it's been hit by a hurricane, all sorts of art debris covering every available layer. There are pencil shavings and drying paints and torn up pieces of construction paper. Student work. Broken clay pots stacked on a shelf near a kiln that, judging by the warmth in the classroom, is turned on. One wall is covered in crayon scribbles, and Courfeyrac is entirely unconvinced that they are from the students and not Jehan.

As usual, music pipes through the boombox on the unused but messy desk at the front of the room. This time, it's [soft piano and violin music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOgIGvDM06U). Jehan must have been teaching his older students.

Jehan is under a table when Courfeyrac enters, tirelessly scraping clay or—Courfeyrac suppresses the urge to gag—old chewing gum off of it, but when he sees Courfeyrac, he rises, dusts himself off. Though Jehan is barely larger than some of his students, there is never any mistaking him for them. Jehan has a distinct way of dressing, as if he went to a rave, woke up in a rich widow's closet, and bathed in the aftermaths of some grunge party. Just now, he is wearing tight pink pants and a fur coat. If he taught anything other than art, it is altogether unlikely that the middle school he works at would have stood for it.

“Hello,” Courfeyrac says, holding a bag of takeout to Jehan as an offering and kissing his cheek in greeting. “I see that master's degree is being put to good use.”

“It's this or starving to death trying to write poetry for money,” Jehan says, and he leans back against his cluttered desk. “Frankly, honorable though it may be, the starving artist lifestyle does not appeal to me.”

“Is there honor in starving for one's art?”

“Ask Grantaire,” Jehan says, but Courfeyrac doesn't need to. He already knows that Grantaire does not see his position as honorable. Perhaps that's what it takes to make it so.

Jehan looks at Courfeyrac as if he can read his mind. Perhaps he can. That notion of him, fae-like, strikes Courfeyrac again.

“I think people know when they're doing something honorable,” Jehan says. “At least—I hope they do.”

The violin is still playing, and Jehan is still close to Courfeyrac. The feeling grows steadily more unbearable: Jehan does not date, not ever, but Courfeyrac wonders whether he might if offered the opportunity with the right person. But he hasn't spoken to Jehan about it, because to speak it would be to destroy it, whatever _it_ is that they have. If Jehan wanted to date—he would.

As if to underline this point, Jehan plucks a dumpling from his bag of food and holds it out between his index finger and thumb. Courfeyrac leans forward to take it and forcibly takes no notice of the feel of Jehan's thumb brushing his lip. When he looks up, Jehan isn't looking at him, though Courfeyrac has the strange feeling that he's being watched anyway.

“Have you heard?” Courfeyrac says.

“Have I heard what? That the ABC is going to crash that absurd Cambridge Gables Halloween festival?”

It's a good way to put it. Cambridge is a city half-covered in beautifully-roofed homes and half-covered in public housing. To celebrate the nearby Salem's witch trials by mocking them seems terribly ironic in light of similar harassment faced by more innocent humans accused of crimes much more petty than witchcraft—though with similarly harsh punishment.

“Yeah.”

“It sounds like something you came up with,” Jehan says.

“I didn't.”

“I know.”

“It should be fun either way,” Courfeyrac says. “It's twenty-one-plus, so the students will mainly be graduate and the young professionals will mainly be—well—young.”

“So you can continue the admirable task of bringing joy back to Cambridge such that it has not felt since playing an undoubtedly integral role in the winning of the American War for Independence,” Jehan says. “I can hardly contain my excitement.”

“Don't do that,” says Courfeyrac, who has taken a seat on top of one of the tables to eat from his own bag of takeout, paying little regard to his suit. The noodles taste too salty on his tongue, but getting to the sink involves passing Jehan, who is looking at him like he's a particularly interesting insect.

“Do what?”

“Talk like you want it to be any different.”

Jehan stiffens, his languid lean on his desk taking on a vaguely militaristic air. His fingers, long, with bitten nails and stained with dark ink, cease their tapping.

“How can you know what I want,” he says, voice careful and measured and quiet, “if you never _ask_ me?”

Courfeyrac isn't sure how to respond to that, and anyway Jehan doesn't seem to be leaving space for a response. He stands up straighter, puts his gum-scraping knife in the sink, and washes his hands.

“I'm going to be busy for the rest of the afternoon,” he says.

“Do you _want_ me to ask you? You've really given the impression that you don't.”

“Courfeyrac,” Jehan says. “For all your education, your babbling about human nature, your adoration for character studies—you really don't understand anything at all.”

It's a dismissal, and an unambiguous one at that. It leaves Courfeyrac very little to do other than put his jacket back on and leave.

 

–

“You were right about Beckett,” Bossuet says.

He's in his shirtsleeves, light blue and twill, and his tie has long been discarded. He leans on the desk next to Courfeyrac, handing him a folder full of notes.

“Harvard junior. Economics. GPA on the low side, but a trust fund big enough that it doesn't matter. Involved with a couple of progressive groups on campus, but also the young businessmen society. Easy to find on Facebook.”

“Is he in a final club?”

“Of course he is. Future bank presidents always are.”

“What do you need me for?”

“I'm just updating you,” Bossuet says. “Do you want any Chinese? Gonna be a late night.”

Courfeyrac thinks of the last time he had Chinese and shakes his head. The thought of it makes his stomach churn.

“I'm off to interview a client,” he says. “He thinks we're just having dinner.”

“But you're going to ensure that he's not making shit up about his former boss throwing trash in the Charles?”

“Exactly,” Courfeyrac says.

Bossuet claps him on the back.

“See you at the ABC thing tomorrow, then,” he says.

Courfeyrac nods.

Outside, the crisp fall wind—light, but full of the threat of winter—cuts through Courfeyrac's suit. Massachusetts in the autumn is something wonderful, the type of beauty one has to experience firsthand to really understand. It carries all the old colonial regality combined with the slick newness of students, the stuffy academia of so many cold winter and stifling summer months released at last to lectures on lawns. The brick that makes up so much of the state's architecture warms against the red-gold of the foliage, and despite the cold, Courfeyrac finds himself reluctant to enter the restaurant down the street from his Cambridge law firm.

He does nonetheless, however, and finds his client two glasses of red wine in, playing with his fork.

“I thought you'd never come,” the client—thirty-two, trendy glasses, dark hair already going grey, once on a terrorist watch list for communist activity at Middlebury but now clearly disillusioned—says.

“Well,” Courfeyrac says, sitting in his chair and leaning back. “You've made it worth my while.”

The client blanches momentarily, and then preens, his face moving away from middle aged and closer to young and energetic. Courfeyrac is well-accustomed to such an evolution of facial expression, to the switch from old to young when one likes what he sees.

He smiles.

The game, Courfeyrac thinks, is afoot.

 

–

The sun, a force Courfeyrac alternately sees as oppressive and stimulating, gleams through his windows to land strategically on his face. No amount of reshuffling his blankets and pillows can deflect its advances, and so Courfeyrac sits up.

His bed is very cold.

The sun, evidently, has chosen to be oppressive today. His head thumps with the residual pain of having consumed entirely too much red wine the night before. He can taste it in the back of his throat, bitter and dry and almost metallic. The wine was expensive, but the client paid for it, reaching out to brush Courfeyrac's fingers over the check— _Don't worry, this is on my dollar_ —and insisting that Courfeyrac's firm was helping him anyway so he might as well pick up the tab.

Courfeyrac was unfortunately unsuccessful in fucking the happy into that man, though he made a valiant attempt of it and—he realizes, glancing at the mirror across his bed (an indulgence he has been mocked for several times over but which has frequently come in handy)—has the hickeys to show for it.

Presently, he realizes that the oppressive sun was not the entire reason that he woke up. There is also a persistent knocking at his door, the steady _tap-tap-tap—thump-thump-thump_ of one who has been knocking for an absurdly long time and yet perseveres, expecting a response any minute.

“Yeah?” Courfeyrac says. “Come in!”

It is Marius who opens the door, his shock of dark red hair still messy from sleep. Unlike Courfeyrac, he has taken steps to preserve his modesty—namely underwear and a tee shirt. He is carrying, for some reason, a very nice leather briefcase of the sort Marius would never consider carrying. More than lawyer-nice. Banking-nice. Corporate-nice.

“Always nude,” Marius says, shaking his head. “Wanted to ask you if you had that guy's number.”

“What guy?”

“The guy you hooked up with last night. Left his briefcase here.”

Courfeyrac looks at it, wondering if it was deliberate or not. The idea of it being a mystery redeems the man a little in his eyes, and he wasn't _bad_ in bed exactly—just a little overzealous with the neck-sucking, especially for someone ostensibly over the age of sixteen.

“Great,” he says. “I'll tell Bossuet about it.”

“Bossuet?”

“The guy wanted to be a client,” Courfeyrac says.

He stands up to rifle through his closet for pants or something approximating them. Even though it's Saturday, he still wants to stop in the office, drop off his notes on the man—a liar trying to shake down his employers for all they're worth, though his boss probably does regularly commit environmental atrocities—and pick up his Halloween costume at the nearby dry cleaner.

“So you slept with him? Isn't there a law against that?”

“That's psychiatrists,” Courfeyrac says, and then pauses his search to turn and frown at Marius. “Right?”

“Hell if I know,” Marius says. “You're the lawyer.”

“I guess it could be considered attorney misconduct,” Courfeyrac muses. “It was off the books, though.”

“Gonna put on underwear, or do I get this first-row look at your balls all day?”

“Do you plan on being here all day?”

“It's a distinct possibility.”

Courfeyrac laughs.

“Well, I don't,” he says. “You're in luck.”

“I made coffee,” Marius says. “Cosette brought bagels.”

“I knew I liked her for a reason.”

At that, Marius smiles. It's quiet and shy and tired and pretty.

“I'll put one in the toaster for you,” he says, and he leaves Courfeyrac alone to choose something appropriate for not-quite work.

 

–

The full-sized model of the House of the Seven Gables is dimly lit within, and moments after entering Courfeyrac discovers why: the only lighting comes in the form of real candles, their holders elevated high above the festival-attendees heads to avoid any potential pyrotechnic disasters. It casts everyone in sinister flickering shadow and vaguely orange light. Courfeyrac wraps his chiton tighter around himself, the image of one of his draped sheets lighting up striking him suddenly and terribly.

There are a surprising amount of people in the room, nearly all of them bookish—these are Harvard graduate students and MIT alums and young lawyers and journalists and artists, their glasses switched for contact lenses for the night but their costumes still definitively nerdy. Several, like Courfeyrac, have opted for the mythology route: a Medusa passes him on her way to the bathroom, and one is no one if not Ra, the Egyptian sun god. One is dressed like either Henry Winter or one of the characters from Dead Poets Society, and given their particular placement in this particular house on this side of Cambridge, Courfeyrac is disinclined to choose which. Most of the costumes are more creative than they are revealing, though the revealing ones are the most creative of all—one woman wears a bra that looks like it's made entirely of diamonds with a faux-mermaid tail that looks like it's covered in real scales.

The music playing through unseen speakers is [foreign subdued hipster nonsense](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltsgCJ0jwnU), Sigur Ros and Bjork, but it works with the vibe of the place and Courfeyrac finds himself bobbing along to it as he searches for the bar.

“You're wearing a dress,” Jehan says.

Courfeyrac is somewhat unsurprised that he's run into Jehan before the rest of Les Amis. They always seem to find each other somehow, even when Courfeyrac is actively looking for Enjolras and Combeferre and perhaps some sad philosophy student who's read too much Nietzsche and Camus to fall in love with anyone but just enough Voltaire to find Courfeyrac's particular brand of touchy-feely flirtation attractive.

Jehan looks especially lovely tonight, his lavender hair appearing to hold floating flowers—but upon closer observation, it becomes clear that the flowers are actually woven into a dozen intricate plaits throughout his hair, the rest of which is loose and unruly in a way it rarely is when he's dressed for school. His costume amounts to gauze and leaves, essentially, and an actual set of wings. His features, sharp and delicate on a normal day, are even more pronounced now, and it takes Courfeyrac a moment to notice the pointed ears, the pristinely placed makeup.

Jehan is sitting on a railing, balanced precariously on three inches of shiny stained wood, and his legs swing back and forth. Courfeyrac catches sight of one slender calf—white ink tattoo iridescent against his dark skin—sloping into soft leather shoes, the ankle bone casting a sharp shadow in the candle light.

“So are you,” Courfeyrac says.

“Enjolras is already here,” Jehan says, one hand pressed against the railing on either side of his hips.

He eyes Courfeyrac's throat a little accusatorially, and Courfeyrac becomes immediately both self-aware and self-conscious. His faux chiton latches at his shoulders but barely covers any skin above his collarbone, and there are dark bruises there that he hoped the combination of gold paint, his dark skin, and the poor lighting would cover appropriately.

But Jehan is not one to miss such details, and so he watches Courfeyrac's throat as Courfeyrac approaches and, when Courfeyrac is close enough, stretches one hand out, his thumb brushing the hollow at the base of Courfeyrac's neck as his long fingers cup Courfeyrac's throat.

Courfeyrac stays perfectly still as Jehan examines him, and it would be almost sterile or medicinal in nature if not for the odd burning sensation everywhere Jehan touches him.

“Wow,” Jehan says. “He really went to town on you, didn't he?”

“How do you know he was a he?”

“I always know.”

And that's true. Jehan does always know. He has an odd way of demonstrating it, too, his dark eyes (thick-lashed, pupils abnormally large, a ring of black around the irises like a wolf—or a lemur) always watching, just on the edge of things. Courfeyrac sees and knows, but Jehan learns by watching. Courfeyrac has often tried to recruit him for their law firm—“We could always use another human expert”—but Jehan's answer is always the same, cold dismissal and the suggestion that he sees law as some boring distraction from the genuine objective of day-to-day life, which, of course, is beauty in its ideal form.

“Combeferre's here, too,” Jehan says. “They're waiting for you to hand out flyers.”

Jehan's throat is unmarred by bruising of any sort. There is glitter there, strategically placed to enhance the hollows and veins and collarbones, like contouring done in reverse. His neck is in stark relief now as he looks up at Courfeyrac's hickeys and then up into Courfeyrac's eyes. Courfeyrac wants to press his own fingers there, to feel the steady beat of Jehan's pulse, and then, sharper, to feel the steady beat of Jehan's pulse under his tongue—

“Don't do that,” Jehan says, letting go of Courfeyrac's neck and sliding off the railing in a flash of dark green. “Enjolras and Combeferre are waiting for you.”

“Jehan—”

But he has already disappeared into the milieu of students and young professionals who are starting, more and more, to dance instead of continuing their prolonged mingling, their movements arrhythmic but soothing to watch nonetheless.

Courfeyrac leans on the bannister for a moment longer, wishing he were wearing something more substantial so he could pull at a thread or slip his fingers through a belt loop.

Enjolras and Combeferre find him eventually, Combeferre carrying an extra drink and Enjolras three folders. Enjolras, who is prosaic by nature, is nonetheless wearing a costume that Courfeyrac can tell was not in the least coincidental.

“Who are you supposed to be?” Combeferre asks. His own costume is suitably on the border between nerdy and intellectual for this party, a bathrobe and pajama pants, Arthur Dent from _Hitchhiker's Guide_.

“Enjolras and I match,” Courfeyrac says, nodding at Enjolras, whose toga is several inches longer than Courfeyrac's chiton but only covers one shoulder and who has a crown of gold leaves set in his hair. Courfeyrac wonders who wrapped the toga. Well—he doesn't wonder, exactly: “You went with Apollo after all?”

Enjolras's face, stern and authoritative, flickers momentarily into something softer—and then returns, the planes of his face harsh despite the loveliness of his features. Enjolras is hot, standard hot, Courfeyrac knows, because he isn't _blind_ —but this harshness puts Courfeyrac and most others off. It's Enjolras's game face, except that Enjolras is always ready for the game. But it doesn't put everyone off, and someone did have to wrap the toga. Someone with dextrous hands, flexible fingers, and an eye for the grandiose.

“I did,” says Enjolras.

“One wonders whose idea that was,” Courfeyrac says. “One expects Enjolras to _blush_ when he's spotted. One hopes Enjolras has decided on a couples' costume—Apollo and Daphne, one might muse.”

“One better shut the fuck up,” Enjolras says, though the ghost of a smile appears briefly on his face. “Let's get started.”

“One wishes Enjolras would take some time to party. One hardly expected Enjolras to get trashed, but one thought he might at least have a bit of fun in mind.”

“One doesn't know Enjolras as well as one thinks,” Enjolras says, winking, which actually does surprise Courfeyrac.

 

–

An hour later, Courfeyrac has consumed a significant amount more of alcohol, clapped for all the ABC's women as they talked about women's issues whilst standing on some very rickety-looking tables, and handed out every last one of his fliers. He is now in some odd room of the house, what he imagines Victorian drawing rooms must look like, old or old-fashioned furniture with richly colored but fading upholstery, everything done in dark wood to look like mahogany, gilded frames on portraits of dour-looking dead people, a sealed-off fireplace with various gold ornaments and pieces of china on its mantle. One wall is made up entirely of windows, but they're covered with the sort of heavy drapery one might expect to find in a very upscale cocktail lounge.

There aren't very many people in this particular room, as it is far enough removed from both bars to limit drinking opportunities and well-furnished enough to make dancing of any sort difficult. But there are enough to make the sounds of mingling blend into a kind of white noise: a woman laughing; men talking in lowered voices as they feel each other up; someone singing softly; someone else playing a string instrument poorly despite the [music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aQELo7tXyI) filtering into the room.

It is here that Courfeyrac at last finds Jehan, perched on the arm of one of the ugly Victorian sofas and sipping from a drink as he's hit on by two different people at once.

Jehan notices Courfeyrac before Courfeyrac notices him, but he doesn't move except to briefly make eye contact before returning to his two suitors. One is a tall woman, blond hair braided down her back to create something Disney-esque. The other is a tall man, done up in something that must be _Game of Thrones_ -inspired. There's a flicker of movement in Jehan's face, and it takes Courfeyrac a second to realize that Jehan is talking—the hitter-on rather than the hit-on. Or at least an equal participant.

Two arms cinch around Courfeyrac's waist before he can do anything to intervene—not that he wants to—or he wants to, obviously, but he sleeps with whomever he likes and Jehan can do the same, it's not down to Courfeyrac to _protect_ Jehan and certainly not down to him to feel possessive—and Courfeyrac does his best not to startle.

“Remember me?” a voice says in his ear before biting down on Courfeyrac's lobe, sending a shiver up Courfeyrac's spine that is mitigated only by the hot breath the speaker is delivering to the side of Courfeyrac's neck.

It takes Courfeyrac a second, but the speaker's watch—leather band, mother of pearl face, expensive, old—is familiar enough that he does. It's a random, a Harvard teaching fellow in the government department, far enough removed from law that none of his classes ever intersected with Courfeyrac's.

“Bruce,” Courfeyrac says, and Bruce could be a welcome distraction from the goings-on at the Victorian couch except that Courfeyrac finds himself unable to feign much interest. He's slept with Bruce enough that he no longer has any hidden layers or mysteries that Courfeyrac longs to discover. It'd be more efficient to get off with his own hand than with this open book.

“It's been a while,” Bruce says, tucking his face into Courfeyrac's neck and beginning to sway even though the music is barely audible here, a meager speaker by the door playing something Courfeyrac's sure Grantaire or Bahorel would love. “Have you missed me?”

“One might say that,” Courfeyrac says. Bruce might say that. Courfeyrac hasn't thought of him since their last hook-up, a finals-fueled frenzy of fucking that took Courfeyrac through half of the HKS's graduating class of political econ PhDs—they breaking from their dissertations and presentations, he breaking from memorizing case studies and forming endless logical arguments.

“I haven't missed _you_ ,” Bruce says, which is so clearly a lie that Courfeyrac rolls his eyes, grateful that Bruce is behind him. Jehan catches that somehow, a look at Courfeyrac and then a burst of laughter, a peal loud and clear that Courfeyrac can hear over the sounds of people mingling and flirting over the Victorian furniture.

“And yet you remembered me from the back of my head.”

“I'd remember those shoulders after a concussion.”

Courfeyrac is torn between wondering if that's supposed to be sweet and wondering how Bruce recognized him based on his shoulders. In school, Courfeyrac was a much lighter thing, the sort of skinny student that never looked out of place at an undergrad party but in a suit looked perfectly fit for law school mixers. His shoulders were not broad, but slight, sharp, with the kind of blades that poked haphazardly through tee shirts and required an undershirt beneath dress shirts to disguise them. Now, he works out with Grantaire some evenings and Combeferre some mornings, his sole stress reliever other than sex. He was never an athlete other than a turn at cross country in high school, but he's found he likes the way regular exercise makes him look, needs the endorphins after a full day of stress, enjoys the person-to-person contact when he's running with Combeferre or lifting with Grantaire. But that means his shoulders are broader now, his shirt sizes larger, and beneath his chiton from behind he's sure he looks nothing like the Courfeyrac of his law school days. Even his hair is different now, carefully professional though he's wearing it light and curly today instead of slicked to the side, but it has none of the indulgences of his student days—no artful shaving, no bleached ends, no color worked into parts of it.

In short, there is no way that Bruce recognized him from behind after three years of not seeing him once.

“You did always like them,” Courfeyrac says, and Bruce works his fingers into them. Courfeyrac swings around, the better to avoid this, and starts to remember more: Bruce's startling blue eyes, his nose broken in at least two places, his sharp jawline. Bruce, for all that he is boring, is hot, dilated MDMA-pupils and all.

But they're in a house full of hot people, and Courfeyrac tugs away.

“Do you want to go out for a cigarette?” Bruce says.

Courfeyrac does, but he wants to go out for a cigarette with someone else, someone new and interesting with secrets to uncover. Or someone he knows so well that the interest is a flame burning low but steady instead of a sharp spark that fizzles out—but Courfeyrac doesn't have anyone like that.

_How can you know if you never ask?_ comes a voice in his head, intrusive and disruptive, and Courfeyrac ignores it.

“I'd love a cigarette,” he says, nothing Bruce's hooded eyes, the hardness in his jeans. _Already? How boring_ , Courfeyrac wants to say. Instead: “Do you still roll your own?”

Bruce's smile is a glint that suggests he's keeping a secret, but Courfeyrac knows the secret is only that he usually slips weed into his self-rolled cigarettes so that they taste and look like a cigarette but smoke like a spliff and feel like a joint. Courfeyrac is uninterested in getting high tonight, but he follows Bruce out onto the back deck anyway. If Bruce is already hard—or getting there, at least—then Courfeyrac can maybe quickly get off and get back to the party. It's been a while since he's had outdoor semi-public sex, and Bruce is hot and Courfeyrac's underwear is scarce.

The deck looks over a thick copse of picturesque Cambridge fall trees, their leaves either red-gold and barely clinging to branches or fallen to the ground. It's dark enough now that they look sinister, especially in the firelight that peeks through the house's windows and open doors. And it's cold, which Courfeyrac isn't drunk enough to ignore. He rubs his arms without thinking about it. Bruce pouts and presses close enough that Courfeyrac can feel Bruce's erection against his thigh.

“Are you cold?” Bruce asks, and Courfeyrac is struck by the feeling that if he has to converse with Bruce for another moment he'll lose it. He's too old for this, for hooking up with exes that he doesn't even find attractive anymore, for standing in the freezing cold Cambridge fall night in only a short fucking dress after three drinks, too old for self-rolled cigarettes and definitely too old for molly. Bruce bores him, which Courfeyrac has known for years, and he feels that if he stands there any longer he'll do something drastic, like rush back inside to punch the tall blonde and the tall brunet in the face or declare this entire thing a horrible sham and burn the model house down.

“Yeah,” he says. “I'm actually going to go back inside.”

“But we just got out here,” Bruce says, putting a hand on either side of Courfeyrac's waist. “I could warm you up.”

“Not tonight,” Courfeyrac says, sharper than he means to, and Bruce staggers back.

“You're using your lawyer-voice,” he says.

“I'm a lawyer,” Courfeyrac says. “All my voices are my lawyer-voice.”

“Are you turning me down?”

“Given the circumstances, I'd say I'm turning you off.”

Bruce opens his mouth to respond, but Courfeyrac ignores him and pushes back into the house with its heating and its bodies and its smell of cologne and dried flowers and hard liquor.

The room they were in is empty now, at least empty of anything that would interest Courfeyrac, and so he moves on to other rooms. He sees Grantaire and Enjolras, leaning in the corner of one room and talking in quiet voices as if they're sitting on a private couch instead of at a party filled with hundreds of people (and that, Courfeyrac realizes, must be the reason for Enjolras's more frequent indulgences in humanity); he sees Bossuet and Joly and Musichetta dancing together in the main room, which is packed with people in absurd costumes that nonetheless dull in the face of Musichetta's hand-painted mask, Bossuet's wolf costume, Joly's black and white old Hollywood makeup; he sees Cosette and Marius, making out as usual, up against a wall but somehow sweet instead of vulgar. He sees everyone except who he wants to see. 

 

–

Courfeyrac wakes up early the next morning, altogether far less hungover than he expected.

He takes his time to shower, gold paint gilding the shower's stream as it rinses off him and leaving a glittering residue around the drain that Courfeyrac doesn't bother to clean off. He stands there for what seems like hours, tempted to jerk off but really just relishing the heat of the water as it slides down the curve of his spine.

Marius does not seem to be in, so Courfeyrac assumes he spent the night at Cosette's. Neither Combeferre nor Enjolras has texted him, and Courfeyrac doesn't want to bother either in their morning-after glows with their respective significant others (even if, in the case of Enjolras and Grantaire, the others don't quite know the extent of their significance).

But he feels lonely nonetheless, and so he decides to partake in an unspoken post-party custom that he and Jehan have had for years.

He gets to Jehan's apartment early enough that he wonders if Jehan is even up, but by the time he's reached Jehan's building there is little to do other than press the buzzer.

Courfeyrac looks up at the building as he waits, a short brick building with only eight apartments spread over three floors inside. It's close enough to Tufts that most of its residents are tired students who can afford off-campus housing in one of the most expensive parts of the region, and this early on a Sunday morning, most of them are likely still asleep. It looks quiet this way, but hospital-room-quiet more than house-to-yourself-quiet, and Courfeyrac feels a little unsettled. Most mornings, the neighborhood is full of people frantically trying to make it to class or work on time. At least two or three joggers can typically be seen on their way to a nearby park, and the street is frequently dangerous with bikers. But right now, Courfeyrac feels like he is the only person alive for at least several blocks.

Someone eventually buzzes him up, and Courfeyrac walks up the stairs slowly, taking care to control his breathing.

“This is new,” Jehan says when Courfeyrac opens the unlocked front door without knocking. Jehan is standing behind the kitchen bar making coffee, swaying slightly to the sad indie music playing out of his phone. His eyes are bloodshot and his long braids are wrapped up in a tight cloth. Beneath it, there is still glitter on Jehan's cheeks and collar.

Normally, it's Jehan coming to Courfeyrac's place with croissants, bagels, and cream cheese; but this morning Courfeyrac is up much earlier than their standard eleven a.m. meet-up time. It's early enough that Jehan has the light clicked on, the day so far too overcast for even his massive windows to keep his apartment well-lit enough. And anyway, Jehan looks so hungover that Courfeyrac can almost physically feel the exhaustion radiating off of him.

“I was in the neighborhood,” Courfeyrac says, and realizes a moment too late what it sounds like.

But Jehan does not appear to have misunderstood. He turns on the coffee maker—enough, Courfeyrac notices, for at least two people even though Bahorel is surely at his girlfriend's, and _how_ does Jehan always know?—and reaches for the bag Courfeyrac has placed on the bar.

“I was wondering if you were already up,” Jehan says. “You left early last night.”

“You saw me leave?” Courfeyrac says.

Jehan shrugs, more a micromovement of his chin than of his shoulders. He slides Courfeyrac a chipped plate with a massive kitten's face on it. Its eyes glare up at Courfeyrac as if he plans to eat the cat and not a croissant off of it.

“You looked bored,” Jehan says.

“I couldn't find you.”

“I would've only bored you more.”

He reaches over anyway, a piece of chocolate croissant held lightly between his fingertips. Courfeyrac plucks it off with his mouth, intending to linger over the feel of Jehan's fingers there, but Jehan barely brushes him. Courfeyrac chews too quickly, the croissant sliding down his throat more roughly than is entirely comfortable. He swallows twice and glances longingly at the coffeepot, which has not yet finished its brewing.

“I doubt it,” Courfeyrac says.

Something in Jehan's face twists, and it takes Courfeyrac a surprisingly long time to understand what it is: his mouth, previously in a neutral sort of pout-y expression, has somehow pressed itself into a thin line without displacing any of the rest of his features. Even Jehan's red-rimmed eyes remain carefully blank.

“It's too early for this.”

The ache in Jehan's voice is clear, and Courfeyrac's mind clicks into gear: the slope of Jehan's shoulders. The coffee, three hours earlier than usual and alone. The dark circles. The tied-up hair and unshowered skin.

“How were the giants?” Courfeyrac asks, more to change the subject than because he cares.

“Not boring,” Jehan says, smiling slightly and then wincing.

Courfeyrac stands up, which seems to surprise Jehan, which— _finally_ , Courfeyrac thinks.

He steps around the bar to where Jehan has just pressed his fingers to his temple and grasps Jehan's wrist. Jehan watches him in silence, almost wary, and then almost wolfish in his wariness.

“You're hungover,” Courfeyrac says.

“Horribly so,” Jehan admits.

“Let me,” Courfeyrac says, pressing a thumb to either side of Jehan's skull and moving them in slow circular motions.

Jehan's breath comes out in one sharp exhale, but he doesn't move back. If anything, he inches closer, and a moment later his head drops completely onto Courfeyrac's shoulder.

“My head's too heavy,” he says. “I'm just going to rest it here for a second.”

“Don't fall asleep on me,” Courfeyrac says.

“Never,” Jehan mumbles.

Another moment passes, and then Jehan pulls away, blinking rapidly. He moves around Courfeyrac, who stands in faint shock until he realizes that Jehan is reaching for the bottle of aspirin on top of his stainless steel refrigerator. Jehan takes two pills, looks at the bottle for another second, takes a third.

“That bad?” Courfeyrac says.

“Dark liquors fuck you up,” Jehan says. “All those … tannins. And sugars.”

“You learn that in high school chemistry?”

“Something like that,” Jehan says.

He walks over to his coffeepot and fills two mugs that Courfeyrac, having helped Jehan and Bahorel move into this apartment, knows were once a crisp white.

Jehan adds cream and sugar to one of the mugs and passes it to Courfeyrac. He takes his own with only loads of sugar, so much that Courfeyrac wonders if the texture has changed as a result.

“You look like you still really don't want to be carrying the weight of your head,” Courfeyrac says.

Jehan takes a sip of his coffee, looking at Courfeyrac above the rim and not saying anything.

“You know—I don't mind,” Courfeyrac says. “You can lie down or whatever. You can use me as a head-support system. Whatever.”

“Don't,” Jehan says. “I told you. It's too early for this.”

“For _what_?”

“For _you_ ,” Jehan says. “Usually I don't—I don't care. You can do your whole charming thing on me, and it's not … it's okay.”

“I don't do my whole charming thing on you,” Courfeyrac says, taken aback. His coffee is perfect, of course. “ _You_ do your thing on _me_.”

“I do not,” Jehan says, insolent. His chin is even sticking out a little. He's been hanging around too many eighth graders.

“Jehan,” Courfeyrac says desperately, “you _feed_ me.”

Jehan blinks, and Courfeyrac knows that he has broken some unspoken code: do not talk about the Thing with Jehan. Do not talk about Jehan feeding you. Do not talk about bringing each other meals at work. Do not talk about the way you both stiffen around each other and relax at the same time. Do not talk about the Thing with Jehan.

“My head really hurts,” Jehan says.

“I can go,” Courfeyrac says.

“No—don't,” Jehan says, closing his eyes. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.”

“But you think it's true,” Courfeyrac says. “That I—that I try to charm you.”

“That's not exactly it.” Jehan sighs. “I know you're not trying to charm me. I know it's just—just how you are.”

“It's _not_.”

“That's true.”

Jehan sits down on the other side of his bar, which is odd because as many times as Courfeyrac's been in this apartment he thinks he's seen Jehan sit on that side of the bar maybe three or four times. Usually he's on the kitchen side, cooking or stirring things or even sitting on the bar top with his legs crossed, sipping from a glass of wine and making uncomfortable amounts of eye contact. Like this, their roles are almost reversed.

“I'm sorry,” Jehan says again, leaning on his outstretched arms and tilting his head up at Courfeyrac. “I'm tired and my head hurts and also I feel like I consumed a metric liter of sriracha or something last night.”

“Are there non-metric liters?”

“I don't know,” Jehan says, closing his eyes. “Imperial liters? That's a thing, right?”

“I don't think so.”

They're both quiet for a moment, and Courfeyrac almost thinks Jehan has fallen asleep, but then:

“I know it's different,” Jehan says.

“What do you mean?”

Jehan opens his eyes. He watches Courfeyrac watch him, one hand ignoring the handle of the mug to cup its body. Courfeyrac thinks of Jehan's fingers on his neck, Jehan's fingers brushing Courfeyrac's lips—

“I mean with me. I know it's different,” Jehan says.

“We don't have to talk about it,” Courfeyrac says.

He tears off a bit of the abandoned croissant as Jehan watches. Courfeyrac considers it for a moment: golden-brown crust, the dark sweet filling within—it's not their usual bakery, but it's a good one, Italian and open early on Sundays so people can stop in before church—and then holds it out for Jehan.

Jehan looks up at him. The bite-sized piece of croissant is inches away from him, so he doesn't have to reach far—but it's inches away from him, so he does have to reach.

Jehan does, stretching his lips far enough that they get hold of not only the food but also the tips of Courfeyrac's fingers. Jehan's lips are soft and dry, and Courfeyrac—who has pulled this trick too many times to be able to call it a dirty one—grits his teeth.

Jehan chews slowly and swallows, his jaw working carefully. He has the finest stubble growing there, dark, creating a sharp contrast with the bleached and dyed hair on his head. Courfeyrac wants to reach out and touch it, so he does, and finds that the hair there is rougher than Jehan's other hair. He supposes he should've expected that—this isn't his first interaction with stubble—but it surprises him nonetheless.

And Jehan, who moments ago told Courfeyrac not to charm him this early, closes his eyes again. Courfeyrac opens his palm and Jehan presses his face against it, quiet for a moment.

“You smell good,” Jehan says. “I'm jealous of your shower.”

“Are you jealous that I showered, or of the shower itself?”

Jehan smiles. Courfeyrac feels the movement before he sees it, the muscles in Jehan's face stretching against his palm.

“Do you want to go back to bed or something?” Courfeyrac says.

“Was that an invitation?”

“Are you _flirting_ , Jehan?”

“I can't help myself,” Jehan says, moving so that his lips brush Courfeyrac's hand with every word. “I'm tired and vulnerable and my head hurts and you're—well—you.”

“I still don't know what that means.”

Jehan is silent for a moment, looking down instead of at Courfeyrac. And then, just when Courfeyrac thinks he's fallen asleep or decided to stop talking or lost interest, Jehan looks up. His eyes—black then brown then black again, like a target—are wide. The red in them has subsided a little, and Jehan actually looks better after his half-mug of coffee and triple dosage of aspirin.

“What happens,” Jehan says slowly, “when I don't interest you anymore?”

“What happens when _I_ don't interest _you_ anymore?”

“That won't happen,” Jehan says. “I'm an obsessive. You know that.”

He still hasn't moved away from Courfeyrac's hand. His lips send frequent shivers down Courfeyrac's spine, and Courfeyrac finds that he is unable to move. There isn't anything he wants more than _this_ , Courfeyrac realizes—he thinks he would give up sex forever if Jehan would just touch him like this more often.

“You get bored,” Jehan continues. “That's why you've never had a long relationship. That's why you were so unhappy to see Bruce last night. You lose interest once the mystery is dead.”

“I've known you since I was eighteen,” Courfeyrac says, leaning forward over the bar in earnest. “If I were going to lose interest, don't you think I would've done it by now?”

“I know what interests you, Courfeyrac, and you haven't gotten it from me.”

“People lose interest sometimes,” Courfeyrac says. “There's not—no one's ever going to be able to stop that. It's just how people are. But I don't know other people the way I know you. There's a difference between sleeping around because people are boring and—and _you_ , Jehan.”

Jehan leans up quite suddenly, moving away from Courfeyrac's hand.

“You don't know me well enough to be bored by me,” Jehan says.

“I know you too well to be bored by you,” Courfeyrac says.

Jehan kisses him. It's so brief that it might be an accident, a facial mis-angling as he tried to stand up, but Jehan doesn't move entirely away.

Courfeyrac reaches up to touch his lips. They feel the same as they always do, he supposes, except that he himself feels somewhat numb and so perhaps his hands haven't noticed something vital, like that his lips have fallen right off his face.

But at this gesture, Jehan moves forward again, kisses Courfeyrac's fingertips, and—when Courfeyrac moves his hand—takes both fingers into his mouth.

His lips are soft and pliant. The combination of the heat and wetness from Jehan's mouth and the fact that this is _Jehan_ sucking on his fingers makes Courfeyrac shudder.

“Jehan—” he manages, and Jehan smiles, still making full eye contact. His teeth skim Courfeyrac's knuckles.

“You're my best friend,” Jehan says, sliding off Courfeyrac's fingers but bringing a hand up to the side of Courfeyrac's head to thumb his earlobe. “I don't want you to get bored with me.”

“I won't get bored with you.”

“Good,” Jehan says, and drags Courfeyrac forward by the ear.

“You're tired and vulnerable,” Courfeyrac says.

“Shut up,” Jehan says, kissing him, more soundly this time but still more lip than tongue.

[The song changes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg8Ckamh8Gw), and Jehan pulls away.

“You left the party early last night,” he says.

“I know that.”

“You didn't do much dancing.”

“Hardly any at all.”

“Dance with me now, then.”

“I thought you were hungover.”

“Coffee and aspirin and sugar are doing the trick quite nicely.”

“Sugar?” Courfeyrac says, leaning in to kiss Jehan again.

Jehan laughs, a light sound that tugs at Courfeyrac's insides. In his apartment, Jehan looks like an angel: the light coming in from the French window creates a gentle chiaroscuro, so that half his face is shadowed and the other half is bright and lovely. Courfeyrac half-expects Jehan's wings from the night before to appear again, to beat against his back and raise him above the barstool he's slumped in.

“Dance with me,” Jehan says again.

Courfeyrac does, walking around the bar to take Jehan's extended hand. The music does not exactly make for easy dancing, but they're both tired and so it works for their current state. The singer's warbly voice guides them through some half-remembered ballroom steps, dance moves Grantaire taught them all—half-drunk but not stumbling a bit—at one ABC event or another. Courfeyrac leads, and then Jehan leads, and Jehan is better at it because Courfeyrac likes to twirl too much to lead; but then their dance devolves into something less careful, and Jehan's arms lock around Courfeyrac's waist and they just sway slowly to the music.

Eventually, the song changes into something with more of a beat, and at first Courfeyrac considers turning their swaying into something closer to a dance—but then Jehan turns around so that his back is pressed against Courfeyrac's front, and that idea disappears completely from his mind. Instead, Courfeyrac wraps his arms around Jehan's waist and continues his slow swaying.

It isn't quite grinding—it's something more refined, softer and gentler than that, but Courfeyrac moves Jehan's hair aside and kisses the nape of his neck anyway. When Jehan responds to that—a sharp intake of breath—Courfeyrac tugs lightly on the hair in his hand and bites.

The skin there is hot and salty, paler than the rest of Jehan's body because it's so frequently hidden by hair—but now Jehan moans, his swaying less rhythmic and more haphazard, fueled by desire rather than merely some need for closeness. Courfeyrac moves his mouth upward to the space behind Jehan's ear, and Jehan shudders so violently that Courfeyrac laughs.

Jehan reacts immediately to this, turning around abruptly enough that Courfeyrac is surprised despite the closeness of their bodies. Jehan's arms slide once again around Courfeyrac, but this time they're lower, both hands cupping Courfeyrac's ass and then squeezing, a feeling that's possessive enough that Courfeyrac has to wonder how long Jehan has wanted to do this, how long he's thought of Courfeyrac as _his_ —and then suddenly realizes that he himself has thought of he and Jehan belonging to one another for longer than he can remember.

But before Courfeyrac can continue to ruminate on this, Jehan shoves his mouth up against his, and now he is more tongue than lip: the feeling of heat and wetness on Courfeyrac's mouth is enough for him to dive forward, wanting more, and Jehan responds in kind. He shoves Courfeyrac bodily forward until Courfeyrac's back connects with the wall, kissing him all the while.

Jehan's kisses are pure technique, careful and clever despite their intensity. His tongue is pointed as it runs against the top row of Courfeyrac's teeth and then flattens as it brushes Courfeyrac's tongue; he engages sucking and nibbling in equal measure, evenly spaced-out enough that Courfeyrac can tell it isn't random, which is just like Jehan: for all his art and scribbles and poetry, Jehan is nothing if not thought-out. He once spent three months on a haiku. Art, Jehan will always maintain, is not random; and neither, it would seem, is sex.

It takes a while, and Courfeyrac finds that this is really more than enough for him—close contact, tongues, hands groping one another's bodies alternately like they're trying to tear each other apart and press both bodies together—but Jehan backs away. His hands remain firmly planted in Courfeyrac's back pockets, but his back arches so that he's looking up into Courfeyrac's eyes.

Courfeyrac is a lawyer. He spends a good amount of his time being lied to and trying to figure out whether people are making things up and how much they can be trusted and how much they trust him. It's why—with little logic behind it, at least of the evolutionary sort—he finds eye contact to be so erotic. He likes sex, of course, but for months it's been enough to verbally spar with Jehan and eat bits of food out of his hands and watch him over the bar in his apartment.

And so now, when Jehan's target-eyes look up into Courfeyrac's, Courfeyrac finds that he is altogether unable to stay quiet. He means to moan, he knows he does, but what comes out is something more akin to a whimper.

“Good boy,” Jehan says softly, which makes Courfeyrac groan and Jehan laugh.

“You're probably going to kill me,” Courfeyrac admits.

Jehan laughs again. It's breathier than normal, like he's having trouble not moaning himself.

“The feeling is mutual,” Jehan says. “How did you know to bite my neck?”

“How did you know to say 'good boy'?”

“Well,” Jehan says. “You said it yourself: I feed you.”

Courfeyrac laughs too at this.

“What you're saying is that I'm your puppy,” he says.

“Well,” Jehan says, twisting his fingers up into Courfeyrac's hair and tugging. “Not quite.”

 

–

When Courfeyrac wakes up, it is to twisted sheets and a tight fit. Jehan's apartment, south-facing, attracts enough light at midday that Courfeyrac can see it through his closed eyes and feel it on his bare skin, a warmth altogether different from the heat from the other body pressed against his.

He opens his eyes and sees Jehan facing him, lying on his side so that Courfeyrac can see every part of his face. Jehan's bed is barely big enough to fit both of them, which means Courfeyrac's face is close enough to Jehan's that he can feel every breath, each slow inhale and smooth exhale. Beams of the sun illuminate Jehan, giving him an unearthly glow that Courfeyrac finds himself smiling at when Jehan wakes up.

“You creep,” Jehan says.

Courfeyrac laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> Uh, I have to say the feeding-each-other thing is a self-indulgence that comes from having recently read volumes one and two of the Captive Prince (definitely read it, but know that you'll be wildly unsatisfied by the ending and the last book doesn't come out until February).
> 
> Anyway, song list:
> 
> \- the music in Jehan's classroom: [Spiegel Im Spiegel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOgIGvDM06U) by Pärt  
> \- the music at the party when Courfeyrac first gets there: [Mutual Core (Atapy Remix)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltsgCJ0jwnU) by Bjork  
> \- the music at the party when Courfeyrac “dances” with Bruce: [Dancing Shoes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aQELo7tXyI) by the Arctic Monkeys  
> \- the beginning of the dance scene in Jehan's apartment: [Putting the Dog to Sleep](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg8Ckamh8Gw) by the Antlers  
> \- when the dance sexes up: [Nice and Slow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRogbCxs9Mk) by Max Frost


End file.
